Wading
by Fictatious
Summary: A series of snap-shot drabbles about Bakura growing up alone on the banks of the Nile.
1. Locust

Locust

He lay there in the rushes with his knees curled up close to him. Two inches of water and mud lapped against his side, soaking and soiling the tatty rag around his hips that used to be a kilt. The tall stalks and grasses hid him from the people walking past on the shore and the fishing boats drifting on the river. He'd even found a nice tuft of sod to rest his head on. It was a comfortable way to spend the hot afternoon.

Bakhura yawned, his eyes half-closed and gazing vaguely through the stalks to the expanse of water beyond. He could hear the voices of fishermen in the distance and the splashes of the nets. The soft, distant sounds mingled with the steady lapping of the water against the beach, lulling Bakhura into a light doze within his wet nest.

His consciousness didn't drift off too far though, because he heard the buzzing of fast-beating wings and the tiny thump of a large insect landing on a reed. Bakhura opened his eyes slowly, keeping the rest of his body very still, and spotted a fat locust on a stalk near his head. He stared at it for a few seconds, and then snapped out his arm as quick as he could and, with great satisfaction, felt his fingers close around the locust.

Bakhura smiled. He moved one finger to look at the struggling locust in his hand without letting it escape, and he examined it for a moment before shoving it into his mouth and biting down quickly to stop its squirming. He chewed it for a while so that the legs wouldn't stick in his throat. The taste left a lot to be desired, but Bakhura wasn't going to pass up food that dropped itself in his lap.

He sighed and let his eyes drift shut again, listening to the soft sounds of the river.


	2. Moving Day

Moving Day

When the merchants started to recognize him, that's when it was time to move. They didn't have anything on him, of course, because if he was caught, he'd be flogged immediately, but when they could look up and identify him as 'that urchin who was watching my stand the day before I was robbed,' that was when Bakhura knew it was time to leave town.

And so he'd stolen into town at night for one final shopping trip and collected some supplies before setting off several hours before sunrise. He was well out of site of the village before anyone else was awake. He walked along the river, sometimes on banks, sometimes beaches and listened to the sounds of insects give way to the sounds of birds.

He didn't know how far away the next town would be or how far he'd be walking, and so kept an eye out for palms, radish leaves or lilies as he went and stopped for anything edible that presented itself on the shore or in the shallows.

Moving was tiring and risky, but Bakhura enjoyed walking and looking at things. And while he was walking between villages, away from the people and their livestock and cracking whips, listening to the birds and the animals that stayed close to the nurturing bosom of the river, he stopped feeling lonely.


	3. Lotus

Lotus

Sometime before noon, Bakhura scrambled down the clay bank to check on his lily-field again. There was a sand-bar jutting out into the river and behind it a quiet pool had formed, and within that pool, a field of pink-lilies. Bakhura stood with his feet sinking into the soft mud at the edge of the lapping water and squinted out at his lilies, carefully examining the carpet of wide, flat leaves and the large, pinkish blossoms dotted here and there among them.

He spotted a lily-pad that was poked up on one side, as though being pushed from underneath, and Bakhura sucked in his breath eagerly and splashed out into the water. Once the water was dragging at his waist, he fell forward and swam out, trying not to get tangled too badly in the submerged stems tethering the lilies to the mud below. Bakhura reached the lily-pad that was poking up and shoved at it. Sure enough, when the leaf was moved aside, it revealed a honeycombed knob, bigger than Bakhura's fist, sticking out of the water.

Bakhura couldn't touch the bottom, and that made it difficult to bite through the stem, while thrashing in the water to stay afloat and to keep his arms and legs from getting too tangled up. Finally the stem broke and Bakhura tried to hold it up out of the water in one hand while swimming clumsily back toward the shore. When his feet finally found purchase (although very slippery with muck) Bakhura staggered and panted with the effort of his struggle against the lilies.

Back on land, he dropped down heavily into the clay and sat there, trying to catch his breath as he counted the seeds in his lily-fruit. Twenty-six. Bakhura grinned triumphantly; he'd captured a very big fruit. He started picking and pulling at the side until the walls around one of the seeds broke, then he glanced down at the clay under him and scooped out a small bowl with his hand to drop seeds into. He pushed a bit of the broken rind between his teeth to chew on while he kept pulling seeds free and dropping them into the basin. It didn't taste very good; not all that different than chewing through the stem had. The seeds were sweet and nutty though, and they made the effort worth-while.

There was a dicky-bird that kept trying to sneak up and steal a seed away from Bakhura as he pealed off the skins and popped them into his mouth. Bakhura glared at it and threw pieces of the rind, twice managing to actually hit the would-be thief with a small chunk. The bird flapped at him and ran back and forth along the clay and sand, eyeing Bakhura irritably. "Either get your own," Bakhura said, flinging an empty peal in the bird's direction, "or stop being so incompetent. You're a terrible thief."


End file.
